This is a facet of religion I'm all wrapped up in now. It's an excerpt from
The Tower of Alchemy by David Goddard. You should read it if you really want to know what's going on. It's kinda long but worth it.
The Anointed
In Qabalah, the place of the Messiah is the place where the three Upper Worlds meet. It is the Kether of Yetzirah (full psychological integration), the Tiphareth of Briah (spiritual maturation), and the Malkuth of Briah (the Presence of the Divine) which is the Shekinah, the Co-habitating Glory. [Amie's note: it is the Shekinah that "haunts" Morrissey, that he laments and embraces in his songs.] Messiah is Hebrew for "the Annointed"; the Greek noun is Christos, for "one upon whom all Grace rests." The role of the Messiah is a function in the universe and in evolution, not a personality. The role is filled at various times by different Illumined Ones, in the same way that the office of the ruler of a Masonic Lodge is filled by different brethren over the course of time. Any of the Sages who have filled this role provide a valid means of contact with this spiritual level, since, ultimately, they are but living symbols of the reality itself. THe reality is the attainment of the consciousness expressed as "I and my Father are One." Alchemical prints and tales delight in the story of the Son and the Father, seperated and then, re-united into one being. THe Hebrew name for the Philosopher's Stone is
Aben, a word that combines the words
Ab, "father" (Chokmah), with
Ben, "son" (Tiphareth).
Ab and
Ben are also the "hidden" names of Atziluth and Assiah. This is an intimation that the Great Work, willed by the Absolute, is the manifestation of a physical body that is capable of manifesting the Divine Glory, a solar body that is the alchemical Gold and the rainbow body that is a prism for Clear Light.
Arguments and disputes about the various incumbents of this office of Messiah -- the sectarian intolerance that has plagued humankind for so long -- have no place in the Royal Art. They indicate a spiritual immaturity that reveals an unfitness for the Work of Unification.
In Hinduism, individuals who display this type of spiritual immaturity -- an unwillingness to give honor to anyone's God's but their own -- are called
Pashu (from the root Pash menaing "bound.") Such people are ignorant of the larger reality, the all-encompassing unity of the Absolute. THey have a tendency towards obscurantism and actually practice a type of idolatry towards what is ultimately just "form" and "name." THey can easily be identified as they tend to speak contemptuously of religious faiths and practices other than their own. Superior to the Pashu's are the
Viras ("heroes"), those individuals who acknowledge that spiritual realization, however attained, is the result of interior identification, the union of "I" and "Thou." This mystical truth underlies all symbols and is the goal of every true esoteric ceremony. [Cue "I'll Never Be Anyone's Hero Now."
]
For Christian Alchemists, Jesus, as the Christ, is seen as one of the master alchemists who has already acheived the Great Work. This is shown by the accounts, given in the gospels, of his healing miracles, his mastery over the forces of nature, his transfiguration upon Mount Tabor, his resurrection from the dead, and his ascension. His esoteric teachings, strongly denied by orthodoxy, are recorded in the gospels, and are clear for any instructed in the "language" of the Mysteries.
Jesus is seen as the embodiment of the
corpus glorificatum, the glorious solar body. In this remembrance feast, the Eucharist, (identical to those of Melchizadek, Osiris, and Amitayus), he gives of the red and white substances, alchemically changed (transubstantiation) into channels for his universal consciousness. The theurgic ceremony of the Mass, as Jung held, is the Great alchemical rite of the West. In it, Christ feeds others upon Himself
mad
, until they are strong enough to walk the Way for themselves. Then, after "being made like unto him," they enter into the presence of the Father's glory.
Alchemists who are not Christians do not deny the attainments of Jesus. His Alchemical achievements are among the best known in the world. Sadly, however, they are percieved as a "great exception" rather than, what they are in fact, a "great example, " a call to the heights.
